The disposal of carbon-containing materials, such as used vehicle tyres and plastics used in the fabrication of vehicles, has been a long standing problem. A European Directive banning the disposal of used vehicle tyres in landfill sites has substantially reduced the opportunities for disposal. Disposal costs have consequently increased and there is, thus a greater, incentive to dispose of used tyres by illegal dumping, and/or the formation of tyre mountains. The prices of oil and carbon black, both constituents of vehicle tyres, have also been gradually increasing.
Further, the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive is also making it more difficult for vehicle dismantlers to dispose of plastics materials used in the fabrication of vehicles.
Accordingly, the recycling of carbon-containing materials, such as (but not limited to) vehicle tyres and plastics, has thus become more desirable, and a number of processes have been proposed to achieve this. Examples of such processes, which use pyrolysis to pyrolyse carbon-containing materials to produce usable products, are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,221,329 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,101,463, both assigned to Metso Minerals Industries, Inc.
It is therefore desirable to provide an improved system and method for recycling carbon-containing materials so as to enable the recovery of useful products, including oil, from the carbon-containing materials. References herein to carbon-containing materials preferably imply hydrocarbon and hydrocarbon derivatives including plastics and rubber, typically synthetic. The materials may also include carbon in the form of carbon black.